Daniel nodded. He watched a pair of headlights move slowly through the distant gate of another estate and wondered whether Claire would have laughed at the sight of him standing in the rain outside a mansion with more windows than their whole neighborhood. She would have said, with that familiar brightness in her voice, that no good deed was ever allowed to happen without somebody making it complicated first. He almost smiled.
Then the front door of the Sterling house opened, and a tall woman came out beneath a broad umbrella. She walked quickly down the steps with a leather folder tucked against her chest, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of a far more important task. Even from a distance Daniel could see that she had already decided he was trouble. Her name was Linda Whitfield, and before the night ended she would give him every reason to remember it.
Linda Whitfield had served as deputy director of corporate administration at Sterling Living for nearly nine years. Her office overlooked the river, her clothes were always immaculate, and she approached uncertainty as though it were a stain someone had carelessly left on the furniture. She had earned Victoria's trust by anticipating risks before they became costly. Somewhere along the way, however, she had begun treating human beings as risks to be managed rather than people to be understood.
She approached the gate with Marcus walking a step behind her. "You say you have Ms. Sterling's property?" she asked Daniel without offering her name. "How did you acquire it?"
"I found it on the sidewalk near her downtown office."
"And you decided to bring it to a private residence instead of turning it in?" Linda's eyes traveled from the wet jacket to the scuffed boots. "That seems an unusual choice."
"It has identification inside. I thought she might want it back tonight."
"People do not simply discover a wealthy woman's wallet and carry it across town with no expectations."
Daniel shifted the protective pouch from one hand to the other. "Sometimes they do."
"How much money have you removed?"
He looked at her for the first time with an expression that was no longer merely patient. "None."
Linda turned toward Marcus. "Call the police nonemergency line. We should establish how this individual came into possession of her belongings before we let him through the gate."
Daniel considered placing the pouch on the stone ledge and leaving. He had a table leg waiting at home, dinner still to make, and no interest in convincing people who seemed determined not to believe him. But he pictured the ring beside the photograph, and the thought of it sitting for hours in a security booth made him hold his ground. "Please just tell her the wallet is here," he said. "After that, I'll do whatever she wants."
"You are not in a position to set terms," Linda replied.
The house door opened again. Victoria Sterling stepped onto the top stair, one hand resting against the doorframe. She had heard the word wallet over the internal intercom and come down before Ethan could stop her. The evening had left her exhausted, and for a moment she looked less like the woman from the business magazines and more like someone who had misplaced a crucial piece of herself.